Chapter Seven
"Truth or dare?" questioned Shizuku with a slight frown. "But it's kind of childish, isn't it?"
"And stupid," added Machi.
"And a waste of time," Franklin finished. Poor Sharlnark, everyone just picking on him for no apparent reason I suppose.
"But… but…" Sharlnark stuttered, a bit disappointed that no one really appreciated him and his suggestions and thoughts, and explanations, and etc.
"It's only seven thirty!" he put up. "We've only been here for one and a half hours! Come on, please!"
"No," Machi, Shizuku, and Franklin chorused.
"But why?" Sharlnark spat unhappily, crossing his arms and putting on a frown. "What would you guys rather do?"
"I need a coffee…" Machi spat, shaking her head.
"Me too," second Shizuku, nodding her head in agreement.
"I don't care if it's coffee, as long as it's caffeine…" Phinx sighed, stretching.
Murmurs of agreement quickly arose, and everyone were soon making plans on how they were going to rob the nearest coffee shop or something, Sharl completely excluded from the conversation. They had decided that it was best to find one where their weren't much people, so they wouldn't likely be noticed, but…
"I don't want to make coffee," Kurotopi protested. "And everyone else's coffee making skills are terrible!"
"How can there be coffee making skills? You just dump in the stuff, add water, and done. What's so hard about that?" Franklin asked, scratching his head in question. Kurotopi sighed.
"You have to measure everything, including the sugar, the cream…"
"So? Just drink it plain then, a lot easier!" Franklin pointed out. Kurotopi sighed yet again.
"I agree with Kurotopi," Shizuku nodded, joining in their coffee discussion. "I don't drink my coffee plain, too bitter…"
"So dumping in a two cups of half-and-half and eight packets of sugar still counts as coffee?" Machi asked, raising an eyebrow at the embarrassed girl who was slightly blushing, a rare sight for a rather… blank person…
"Why don't we just go and buy some instead!" Sharlnark squeezed in, catching everyone's attention with 'the word'.
"Did you just say…" Phinx began.
"Buy!" Feitan roared in disbelief.
"Uh… yeah!" Sharlnark nodded happily, praying to someone that they wouldn't start beating him to pulp right then for saying such a thing.
Glare, glare, glare… and a REALLY big glare… (guess from who…)
Silence…
"Let's… forget coffee for right now…" Machi commented, breaking the tense silence that everyone just hated, but appeared so often among the lines. "Why don't we-"
"Play a game!" Sharlnark finished enthusiastically. Everyone pretty knew that was coming, so they didn't even bother to shut him off.
"Yeah, but I don't want to play your games, they're a bit stupid," Shizuku pointed out as Sharl flashed her a rather unpleasant frown. The girl, however, didn't see that, fortunately.
"Then who's do we play?" Sharlnark questioned.
"Um…"
"Mine."
Silence…
"You play games, Feitan?" Phinx questioned the little figure that had just volunteered. Now there's something you don't see everyday: Feitan suggesting they 'play' something. Odd…
"It's called," Feitan began, ignoring his nagging friend. "Kill as many people as possible within one day."
More silence…
"Feitan, the whole York Shin population would be wiped by us if we were to do that, you know, seeing we could probably kill an average fifty people in a big crowd in about a minute, times the seven of us, then…" Sharlnark told him, crossing his arms. "And besides, what do we do with the corpses?"
"…"
"Exactly!" Sharlnark told them. "Now, do we play what I want, or-"
"I want to play M.A.S.H.!" Shizuku interrupted, putting up her hand, which a small stack of paper and a pen 'magically' appeared in. Now of course, there are many, many, many versions, but please, just bear it for a while, okay? Oh, and M.A.S.H. stands for mansion, apartment, shack, and house, what you live in, obviously!
"What's that?" inquired Phinx, examining Shizuku as she put the word M.A.S.H. on the top of the paper.
"Oh, it's sort of a girlish game we would play sometimes in school," Shizuku told him, thinking back towards middle school. "It's just like predicting your future, but it's just for fun, not accurate at all!"
"Better than Sharl's game I suppose," Franklin shrugged as everyone else nodded in agreement, all except Sharlnark, but no one was really caring about him right then.
"Okay, I'll explain as we go along," Shizuku told them. "Now, who wants to go first?"
Silence…
"Oh, I'll go!" Machi exclaimed as she broke the silence. The boys were still a bit big on that 'girlish' part. "But what version are you doing?"
"Um… Four choices, chosen by them," Shizuku told her, referring towards Feitan, Kurotopi, Franklin, and Phinx. Sharlnark was excluded, like before. Poor guy…
"But-" Machi began, obviously wanting to protests, but she wasn't given much of a chance to do so.
"Okay, you four, give me four ways you would like Machi to get around in," Shizuku told them, only to have them all blink in confusion.
"Uh… a bicycle… oh, I don't know!" Phinx began, shrugging.
"Okay," Shizuku replied, writing down the option the left margin.
"A… tricycle?" Franklin replied, equally as confused as Phinx.
"…Unicycle?" offered Kurotopi, utterly clueless as well.
"Bicycle with training wheels?" Feitan murmured, not really caring. Machi slapped her forehead. Three idiots and one big idiot to go. Perfect.
"Hmm… okay!" Shizuku said, recording all of this down on paper. "Now, four people Machi should marry."
"M-marry?" stuttered Phinx. "As in all that big cake stuff and the long white dress thing?"
"Yeah."
"And-"
"Hisoka," Kurotopi interrupted the lot of them, knowing that he would probably pay for it later, but who really had time to think?
"Uh… Feitan!" Phinx called, pointing to the figure that immediately shot him a death glare.
"Phinx," Feitan returned, flipping a page while at it. Of course, Phinx didn't really care, because to him, 'marry' meant that you just lived in the same house, which technically, he already did with the rest of the Ryodan, if it actually counted as a house…
"Hmm… Nobunaga?" Franklin offered, nothing else really popping into his mind.
"Uh… okay!" Shizuku told them, putting the letters B, M, and S right under the four names. Obviously they stood for big, medium, and small, referring towards money, not that any member or the Ryodan would ever be broke or anything, but that's beside the point! ANYHOW! After that, she then put the numbers 0-5 on the bottom, them standing for number of children.
"Now, four places Machi would live."
"Antarctica!" Phinx immediately answered. Yet another one of his jokes.
"Sewer," Feitan replied, not really thinking at all. It just happened to be the theme of a picture he was looking at.
"Here?" Kurotopi supplied. Hey, better than the last two!
"Uh… home?" Franklin suggested. Now we're all smart enough to know where their home was, right?
"Okay!" Shizuku stated as she finished her last letter. She then drew a circle in the middle. "Okay, tell me when to stop!" she informed them as she started putting little dots in the circle.
"Stop!" Machi ordered as Shizuku stopped, counted the dots, and started going around in a circle, crossing out the choice that she lands on. Eventually…
"Okay, done!" Shizuku triumphantly stated, but then looked quizzically stared at the results, shrugging it off eventually. "Okay, let's see… You'll live in a shack in Antarctica married to Hisoka with little money and five children, riding a bicycle with training wheels."
Silence…
"I… I…" Machi grumbled, sinking to her knees. "That is just wrong!"
"Oh, I don't know…" Sharlnark said, trying to squeeze himself in. "The Hisoka part may not be that unrealistic, you- hey… I already have enough bruises, you know!"
"Hahaha…" Machi replied unenthusiastically, having just given Sharl a good whack. "Can we do something else!"
"But this is quite amusing…" Feitan mused, flipping to the last page, then setting down his book.
Stunned silence… (Yeah, more than one kind of silence, tehehe…)
"…What?" Feitan demanded, looking at everyone's surprised faces staring at him in amazement.
"Feitan, are you… feeling okay?" Kurotopi inquired. The Feitan they knew did NOT say things like that, NEVER.
"I'm perfectly fine," Feitan replied with a sneer, as if that was the most ridiculous question ever invented. Of course he felt fine. In fact he felt as great as he could be! Wohoo…
"…Did something happen…?" Phinx asked. Feitan flinched. Oh, how did that guy always know?
"No," Tsk, tsk, tsk… acting just like a little boy afraid of being caught for a wrongdoing.
"Okay, spill, which of these did you eat?" Sharlnark asked, pointing to several empty boxes once filled with sweets and cookies.
"I didn't eat any!"
"Feitan eats chocolate?"
"Hey! I liked that stuff, you ate ALL of it? What about me? What about my feelings? What about-"
"Hmm… Feitan, chocolate… hyperactive? Scary…"
"I need coffee again! Someone make some!"
"I SAID I wasn't making any coffee!"
"GUYS!"
Silence…
"…You made me write on myself…"